Category: Spring 1996

The wire machines flash bells-the sound that signalled the biggest stories had been ringing all afternoon. The high-pitched noise penetrated every corner of the crowded Toronto Telegram newsroom. The area where the machines were located, just off the big, high-ceilinged newsroom, was packed with reporters smoking and staring silently at the the four teletypes. There… Continue reading An Officer and a Journalist

John Miller’s phone rang on the morning of November 1995. The chair of the journalism school at Ryerson Polytechnic University picked up the receiver and found himself speaking with Toronto journalist Judy Steed. There wasn’t any small talk. Steed had something on her mind. “Is it true that Gerald Hannon teaches journalism there?” she asked.… Continue reading Tricks of the Trade

Heading south from Montreal, the slick and stylish downtown core gives way to a swirl of highway and then to the Mercier Bridge. It’s a long, concrete, well-trafficked link from the island of Montreal to the south shore of the St. Lawrence. The bridge passes over the river, a strip of land, then the deep… Continue reading Voice of a Nation

Charles Campbell, managing editor of The Georgia Straight, is checking the final on-screen version of the Vancouver weekly’s Christmas issue. Outside the huge picture window of the second-floor office, located above a Regency Lexus dealership, two men are scrubbing and vacuuming luxury cars in the December rain. They test-drive the cars, says Campbell, and tell… Continue reading What a Long Straight Trip It’s Been

Last spring, eight people were kneeling on the chancel steps at the front of Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Toronto. Heads bent, eyes closed, they listened as the minister delivered the service of ordination, admitting them to the congregation’s elders. One of the eight was writer and journalist Stevie Cameron. Shaking slightly from kneeling-years of… Continue reading The Cook, the Spy, the Prof and the Scribbler